Nasher Public: Artstillery—Family Dollar

Artstillery, an experimental performance group based in the Dallas neighborhood of Oak Cliff, has been working for five years with the residents of West Main Street, a tiny neighborhood with a long history in West Dallas, documenting their stories and working to save important structures that are quickly disappearing due to rapid gentrification in the area.

The project, called Family Dollar (2016–2021), is an extensive archiving effort that includes documentary film, architectural preservation, and live, immersive, though socially-distanced performances that are also recorded for on-demand digital and VR experiences.

As part of Nasher Public, the Nasher Sculpture Center is partnering with Artstillery to support and amplify each layer of Family Dollar, helping bring awareness to the group’s important work and to the stories of the West Dallas community.

Artstillery has interviewed more than 25 current and former residents of the West Main Street neighborhood, preserving their histories, and using them as the basis for performances to take place in two of the last original shotgun houses in the neighborhood. Rather than allowing the houses to be torn down by developers, Artstillery responded to residents’ desires to see them preserved.

With the advice and efforts of volunteers from the engineering and architectural firm, Mead & Hunt, Artstillery moved and reconstructed them on the property of the neighborhood church, Lone Star Missionary Baptist, long a cornerstone of the community, preserving the structures as sculptures. They stand as memorials to the history of the neighborhood, and sites for performances that bring the stories of the neighborhood to life.

Family Dollar Performances and Site Tours
Performances of Family Dollar begin June 18 and run through July 31, 2021. Tickets to performances are available through the Artstillery website, as is more information about the history of Family Dollar, including video documentation of the residents’ stories. Read more online at nashersculpturecenter.org.

During and after the run of performances, visitors will be able to visit the shotgun houses, read labels detailing the stories of neighborhood residents, and access videos of the residents and, eventually, VR recordings of the Artstillery performances on their smart phones via the Nasher and Artstillery websites and the Nasher app.

The reconstructed shotgun houses are open to visitors Thursday – Sunday from 11am – 5pm, June 24 – August 8, 2021.